This invention relates to the supply of electricity by a utility to its customers; and more particularly, to a disconnect switch interbase, or DSI, which is either used as a stand alone unit or often integrated with an electricity meter such as a meter which can be automatically read by the utility, and which enables the utility to remotely control power usage by the consumer through the disconnect switch.
It is well-known in the art that electricity supplied to a house or commercial establishment is routed into the premises through a meter. The meter measures the amount of electricity supplied to the user at the facility and the user pays the utility for the electricity used. This payment is based upon periodic measurements of electrical consumption taken from the meter and a utility bill generated from the meter reading. Recently, electrical utilities have begun using automated or automatic meters which are remotely “read” by the utility, instead of having a utility worker periodically come onto the premises and read the meter as has traditionally happened. A number of automatically read meters, or AMRs, are available, and many are capable of being interrogated (polled) from a remote location. The response provided by the meter identifies the location of the meter and the current electricity consumption at the premises where it is installed. The customer is then billed by the utility based upon the electrical usage output transmitted from the meter.
Sometimes people don't pay their electricity bills. When they don't, the utility, absent special circumstances such as extreme heat in the summer or extreme cold in the winter, is entitled to turn-off electricity to the premises. In the past, when someone's electricity needed to be turned-off, the utility had to send out someone to affect the disconnection. This took time, and sometimes there was a risk involved to the worker. If the overdue bill was subsequently paid, then the crew had to go back out and reconnect the service.
Besides shutting off service for non-payment of a bill, there are other times when a utility needs to control the flow of electricity to a building. A common occurrence is in the summer when it gets very hot at the same time there is high humidity. During such times, there is a peak demand for electricity, and occasionally the demand reaches or exceeds the generating capacity of the utility. When this occurs, the utility can try to buy additional electricity from other utilities to cover its shortage, but this is usually expensive, and adjoining utilities typically are experiencing their own shortages. The utility can also request its customers to cut back on their electrical usage during peak periods of consumption. Usually the peak extends from late afternoon when people start coming home and fixing dinner to sometime in the evening when they go to bed. If consumers do not sufficiently reduce their electricity usage during this time, then the utility often has to resort to floating “brown-outs” in which service is reduced for periods of time, first to one segment of the distribution network, and then to another segment, so the overall load on the system does not take the system down.
Other circumstances in which a utility's ability to effectively and efficiently control service to a home or business include providing back-up overcurrent protection in the event a circuit breaker malfunctions, and arc fault circuit back-up protection.